NASA says the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory ended science observations on October 20, 2026, because the spacecraft can no longer hold a steady gaze.
The satellite is now below 275 kilometers, where drag keeps the telescopes from holding a steady gaze. The agency expects the observatory to re-enter within a few weeks. The final observation was October 20. NASA's account was written by Francis Reddy and last updated on October 26.
Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters, said Swift was designed for a two-year primary mission and remained productive for more than ten times that long. S. Bradley Cenko, the principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said the satellite was built to catch a gamma-ray burst, send its position to other observatories, and turn its own telescopes within about a minute.
NASA says Swift has observed more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and more than 1,400 supernovas, and that Swift data contributed to about 7,000 papers. The public archive holds nearly 22 years of measurements, more than 1.5 million ultraviolet and optical images, and about 12 terabytes. The mission launched on November 20, 2004, and the observatory was renamed in 2018 for Neil Gehrels. In May 2005 it caught the afterglow of GRB 050509B, a burst that lasted 0.03 seconds and yielded 11 X-ray photons. NASA describes that event as the first short burst with a detected afterglow, and it treats short bursts as likely products of neutron-star mergers.
NASA says the archive will still be used, and that it is looking at other spacecraft already in flight for a rapid response after Swift is gone.
Artist's concept. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
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